This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970’s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols. With the advent of pollution controls, certainly we have cleaner (and more optically transparent) skies since then.
From the National University of Ireland, Galway comes this:
New research initiated jointly by NUI Galway and the University of Helsinki reveals the true rate of greenhouse gas induced global warming has been masked by atmospheric aerosols (otherwise known as Particulate Matter), through their formation of reflective haze and cloud layers leading to an aerosol cooling effect.
The new investigations show that the present-day aerosol cooling effect will be strongly reduced by 2030 as more stringent air pollution abatements are implemented both worldwide and at the European scale and as advanced environmental technologies are utilised.
These actions are projected to increase the global temperature by 1°C and temperatures over Europe by up to 2-4°C depending on the severity of the action. This is one of the main research outcomes of the recently concluded EUCAARI (European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interaction) project funded by the European Commission.
The EUCAARI project, originally initiated by Professor Colin O’Dowd at NUI Galway’s Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies, who resided on the project’s management team, and led by Professor Markku Kulmala of the University of Helsinki, has provided new understanding of the impacts of aerosols and trace gases on clouds and climate.
According to Professor O’Dowd:“The quantification of the effect of aerosols on the radiative balance (cooling or heating) of the planet has been one of the most urgent tasks to underpin more informed projections of future climate change. Now that we have this data we need to reinforce European political decision-making to develop new strategies and implementation plans for global air quality monitoring and to take Europe a leading role in developing and applying environmental technologies. Furthermore, it is urgent that higher-resolution EU-scale projections are conducted using a new generation of regional models nested within the global models.”
EUCAARI has been the most extensive atmospheric aerosol research project in Europe so far. The total budget of the project was € 15 million, of which € 10 million was provided by the European Commission Framework Programme 6. In all, 48 research institutes from 24 countries participated in this project over the period 2007-2010. The project has led to significantly more information on the whole physics background related to aerosol formation and impacts at all scales; from nanoscale to global, and from milliseconds to centuries.
The project performed extensive studies from ground-based, aircraft and satellite platforms, not only in Europe, but also in China, South-Africa, Brazil and India (i.e. significant developing countries). These studies have improved the theoretical understanding of the aerosol life-cycle, enabling scientists to make major improvements in climate and air pollution models and present new air pollution scenarios over Europe.
Professor O’Dowd added: “The positive impacts of aerosols are partially off-setting global warming while the negative effects impact on public health. Abatement of the negative health impact is complicated due to the diversity of sources, even within Europe.”
EUCAARI found that the reduction in ammonia emissions is one of the most effective ways to reduce aerosol mass concentrations in Europe. Reduction in nitric oxides is also effective, but might lead to higher ozone levels, thereby leading to another negative impact on air quality. Reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions will reduce particulate air pollution especially in the Eastern Mediterranean area.
Reduction of organic aerosol concentrations is a lot more challenging and will require reductions of gas and aerosol emissions from transportation and biomass burning. Furthermore, it is now shown that a large fraction of organic aerosols in Europe is of modern origin (as opposed to fossil fuel origins), for which the main sources are biogenic secondary organic aerosol (boreal forests), biomass burning and primary biogenic aerosol particles.”
Professor O’Dowd concluded: “All these emission sources are expected to respond to climate change, although we are presently unable to gauge the strength of the multitude of feedback mechanisms involved. The uncertainties in feedback highlight the need for improved Earth System Climate models to encapsulate feedback processes generally lacking in current projections.”
-Ends-Author: Press Office, NUI Galway
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“Professor O’Dowd concluded: …The uncertainties in feedback highlight the need for improved Earth System Climate models…”
Translates into we need more funding.
So have particulates over Europe actually increased since the 1970s? Let’s see some figures. I think the opposite is true.
Those who argue that particulates are masking warming need to explain why there is more warming since 1980 in the Northern hemisphere (lots of partculates) than in the Southern hemisphere (low particulates). If the particulates theory is viable, there would need to be obsevable regional effects.
These actions are projected to increase the global temperature by 1°C and temperatures over Europe by up to 2-4 degrees C
Is that before feedbacks? I mean, could it be worse than they are currently thinking? Time to start panicking and showing our wallets to anyone who can save us, I say.
“48 research institutes” – I read that as 48 research prostitutes.
And yet Douglas Hoyt found that a century of pyrheliometry results found almost no change in the optical depth of the atmosphere. As did Miskolzi for 1948-2006 in his study of the radiosonde data, which are probably a lot better than Steve Mosher tries to makes out. Interesting that he never quantifies the claimed error, just says they are useless. Show us the data Steve.
To quote Rajendra Pachauri:
“This is voodoo science”.
Douglas Hoyt Says:
February 11th, 2007 at 8:00 am
At the AGU Symposium on Oceans in a Changing Climate: Global Heat and Freshwater Budgets at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting held on December 11-15, 2006, Stephen E. Schwartz had a paper entitled “Empirical Determination of the Time Constant, Heat Capacity, and Sensitivity of the Earth’s Climate System”. That paper used Levitus’s erroneous results and derived a climate sensitivity of 2.2 +/- 0.75 C for a CO2 doubling. Substituting the recent Lyman and Gouretski results, his climate sensitivity becomes 1.3 +/- 0.75 C for a CO2 doubling.
Schwartz claims that aerosols are masking about half the warming which would be 1.4 C in the twentieth century vs the 0.6-0.7 C observed warming. We dispute this claim on several grounds.
Measurements of aerosols did not begin in the 1970s as some people claim. There were measurements before then, but not so well organized. However, there were a number of pyrheliometric measurements made and it is possible to extract aerosol information from them by the method described in:
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. The apparent atmospheric transmission using the pyrheliometric ratioing techniques. Appl. Optics, 18, 2530-2531.
The pyrheliometric ratioing technique is very insensitive to any changes in calibration of the instruments and very sensitive to aerosol changes.
Here are three papers using the technique:
Hoyt, D. V. and C. Frohlich, 1983. Atmospheric transmission at Davos, Switzerland, 1909-1979. Climatic Change, 5, 61-72.
Hoyt, D. V., C. P. Turner, and R. D. Evans, 1980. Trends in atmospheric transmission at three locations in the United States from 1940 to 1977. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1430-1439.
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. Pyrheliometric and circumsolar sky radiation measurements by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1923 to 1954. Tellus, 31, 217-229.
In none of these studies were any long-term trends found in aerosols, although volcanic events show up quite clearly. There are other studies from Belgium, Ireland, and Hawaii that reach the same conclusions. It is significant that Davos shows no trend whereas the IPCC models for anthropogenic aerosol increases show it in the area where the greatest changes in aerosols were occurring.
There are earlier aerosol studies by Hand and Marvin in the Monthly Weather Review going back to the 1880s and these studies also show no trends and all the astronomical observations show no trends.
A second argument against aerosols being a cooling agent that masks warming is that the claimed aerosol increases occur where the strongest warming is being observed, namely the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes and Europe. If anything, aerosols are an additional source of heating through soot which warms the atmosphere or soot on snow that will also warm.
Finally the Northern Hemisphere where the aerosols presumably are located is warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere where there are fewer aerosols.
In short there is no experimental evidence that increasing aerosols are masking any greenhouse warming or that they caused the 1940-1975 cooling.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=87
I’ll take non-politically driven research from the late seventies/early eighties over 15 million euro studies paid for by us via the unelected European Commission any day of the week thanks.
China is polluting today as much as the US did in the 70s.
Oops. Biomass renewable fuels are the major source of aerosols?
Cleaning the air will result in warming?
So many hoists! So many petards! KaBOOOM!(S)
This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970′s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols.
I doubt it.
Since I do not think that the global temperature is relevant, I only consider the CET, because it refers to a small climatically relatively uniform region.
I have produced three different correlation based on the data relating to the well known physical processes, considered to be independent from climate, and all three show exactly the same result, the drop of temperatures in 1960-70s was due to the natural causes.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NO.htm
Is it just me, or is everything viewed as a no win situation by environmentalists?
Henry@tallbloke
I admire your knowledge – can I ask you a few questions about my latest findings, here
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
After reading the texts, and looking at the values, especially the differences now apparent between NH and SH,
1) do you agree with me that my findings so far support the argument that the observed warming of the past 3 or 4 decades was natural?
2) where do you think does the difference between NH(apparently warming) and SH (apparently cooling) originate from? Any idea??
Dear Antthony –
“This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970′s where everyone was worried about global cooling wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols.”
*****************************************************************
You may be right, you may be wrong. But please beware of the trap of thinking that the main driver of warming and cooling is mankind. I have no doubt that the government of the EU would love you and its citizens to believe that.
All the best.
According to a Metoffice analysis, annual Sunshine Hours (Campbell Stokes) are the highest they have ever been in SE and Central England. They rose steeply in the 1980’s (see Fig 15) in:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/about/UK_climate_trends.pdf
tallbloke. I imagine you are referring to my criticism of your chart that uses NCEP reanalysis data for specific humidity ( and sun spots.. oy vey)
Can you tell me, do you know how reanalysis data is generated?
And can you tell us, what class of variable you used. There are 4 classes of data; a,b,c,d.
The class for your variable is listed in the appendix of the documentation. you did read
the documentation before you used the reanalysis data?
You did note the warnings about using the data ?
Let me put it this way to you. If you didnt bother checking the class, then just say so.
If you did check the class then you should have known better.
If you’ve never heard of class A, B, C,D in dealing with NCEP reanalysis data,
then honestly son, you need to do more reading before you make another plot
They sound like Pachauri, or at least rhyme with it. Fishy!!!
Professor O’Dowd concluded: “All these emission sources are expected to respond to climate change, although we are presently unable to gauge the strength of the multitude of feedback mechanisms involved. The uncertainties in feedback highlight the need for improved Earth System Climate models to encapsulate feedback processes generally lacking in current projections.”
Do I read, “We don’t really understand what is going on!” Words like “expected”, “unable”, “multitude”, “uncertainties”, “need”, “improved”, “lacking”! Such positive reinforcing words to suggest that current GCMs are in fact seriously lacking & unable to mirror climate, clearly settled science! Out of the mouths of babes? Why are these emission sources “expected to respond to climate change”? I thought they were the cause of it according to some, ie UNIPCC, Wet Office, GISS, Royal Society, USNAS, UEA, NOAA, BBC, Gore, Porrit, Attenborough, Monbiot, et al? Can someone please clarify???? Or is it just little ol’ CO2?
Recyclable saying, already proven suitable for many environmentalist endeavors with many more potential usages already in progress:
We have done such a great job,
We are completely screwed!
So if we reduce aerosol pollution even more, we get healthier air AND we make the earth warmer (according to AGW theory, mostly at night, in the winter, at high latitudes). Sounds like a win-win to me!
New research initiated jointly by NUI Galway and the University of Helsinki reveals the true rate of greenhouse gas induced global warming has been masked by atmospheric aerosols (otherwise known as Particulate Matter), through their formation of reflective haze and cloud layers leading to an aerosol cooling effect.
The new investigations show that the present-day aerosol cooling effect will be strongly reduced by 2030 as more stringent air pollution abatements are implemented both worldwide and at the European scale and as advanced environmental technologies are utilized.”
So what they are saying is rampant environmentalism causes global warming? I always knew those fellows at GreenPeace were up to something, but really, the subtly of the plan astounds me. /sarc
I think only a second rate Uni now would dare stick its neck with this blancmange of wishful thinking and uncertainty. The smarter ones have realized that there is a rapacious swarm of scientifically literate skeptics waiting for their next blunder.
The Galway/Mayo/Donegal Atlantic Coast is a truly beautiful place.
And the ClimateChange department there clearly needs more students!
Go!
Al Gore…man’s a complete ‘aerosol’.
“This makes me wonder if the temperature dip in the 1970′s …wasn’t partially driven by atmospheric aerosols.”
That doesn’t fit with the sinusoidal signal in the temperature record which is pretty obvious.
On the other hand diesel use has expanded enormously over the last couple of decades, with accompanying PM10 soot.
(Must not say PDO, must not say PDO wash my mouth out with soap…)
Warren Meyer points out in Forbes that climate models have different characteristics, but the model creators come up with similar answers by blaming aerosols. They pile in aerosol adjustments until the models behave like past records, then assume aerosol pollution is being reduced… allowing the models to wander into imaginary projection territories.
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2011/06/climate-models-2.html
There is a detectable fever associated with living under a dark cloud of environmental doom.
One could go Enviro Mental.
The cure is to get out of the smoke-filled model rooms and get some fresh air.
Good grief, some of the stuff they come up with sounds like a bad acid trip.
The aerosol theory of cooling is wrong. Cooling was the strongest in mid to polar latitudes (as was the warming before and after) where sun does not shine that much, and especially in winters when it does not matter. The clue is on the oceans and their warm and cool cycles.
More, if the aerosol theory is correct, industrial areas like Ruhr in Germany would be significantly cooler, which is not the case.